“Her family emailed her, threatening to sue her for defamation,” I said with my eyes closed, trying to breathe deeply because I was about to reach my limit with these people.
“She has proof?” I inclined my head towards the loft.
“I think that’s what she’s printing now.” I was about to cross my arms when I heard her feet coming down the stairs. I kept my arms at my sides in case she needed a hug.
“Here!” She came downstairs, looking much more confident and determined with two thick folders in her hands. “I have emails from Jason admitting to the affair. I also have my old phone that I’ve never turned back on. I just got a new number and phone. I traded in an even older phone when I got the one I have now. I’ll plug this into see if I have anything good on it.” She plugged the phone in as Alex read through the emails from her sister, Jason, and his parents. And all of the other printed evidence she’d gathered. There were photos on social media, messenger apps, and screenshots of everything.
“They had to get a restraining order against him? Why?”
“He wouldn’t leave my boss or friend alone. He showed up at my job demanding to know where I was multiple times. He kept going to Raven’s house, convinced they knew where I was. Eventually, they told him that I was somewhere they didn’t know, they just knew I left the state. Everything went through a lawyer, even the bit about there being no baby.” She mumbled the last part.
“What now?” Alex asked, and I was curious too. What baby? She did say, baby, didn’t she? She heaved a sigh before explaining.
“When the confrontation was happening, in front of my family, my parents’ friends, and his family, he hurt me by telling me he picked the wrong sister.” Her eyes looked dead as sherecounted the story, “Being hurt, I wanted to hurt him back. I told him I was pregnant. I wasn’t sure if I was at the time because my period was two to three weeks off, and we hadn’t exactly been careful because the wedding was right around the corner, and we had talked about a honeymoon baby. So, I told him I was and left, ghosting him. But I would have told him if I were, I’m not a total monster. It was two months later that I told Emily and Raven to tell him there was no baby.” Her cheeks flamed red. She was embarrassed, “He wouldn’t leave them alone. Finally, they had no choice but to pursue. It wasn’t my finest hour.”
“That won’t look good in court, but we could always say you got a false positive, and due to the stress and emotional pain you were in, you weren’t thinking clearly when you told him. And then again, when you didn’t tell him right away, there was no baby.” Alex said, matter-of-factly, “Let’s power up that phone. If there’s evidence on there, I want to use that instead of the emails.”
Powering on the phone, we didn’t have to wait long before it began buzzing with unread text messages, voicemails, and notifications on her socials. I grabbed it before she could, taking the chance to see everything first from her. I didn’t want her exposed to that anymore.
“I’d like to read it, that way if it’s hurtful,” she shook her head.
“I need to see this, Sebastian.”
“We all do,” Alex reminded us. Nodding, we crowded around the phone, flat on the countertop.
“Voicemails first. If we have their voices, it’ll be pretty damning. Text messages next.” She nodded at Alex’s words.Clicking the first voicemail and putting it on speaker, a woman’s voice filled the air.
“Straight to voicemail?! AGAIN?! You better answer the next time we call you, Stormi Selene Buchcannan! You cannot embarrass your sister like that and walk out on this family! I’m sorry you're hurt that Jason chose her over you, but honestly, what did you expect?!” A scoff was heard, “Get over yourself. A year is nothing. And you’d only invested eighteen months with him when you found out about them. Get over it. Call us back, you brat!”
Clicking the next one, putting that on speaker also, a man’s voice rang out, “Listen, pumpkin, I know you’re upset at your sister and mother. I am, too. I didn’t know anything about that or what was happening. Maybe I was just choosing not to notice. I don’t know. But I do know that you can do better than him if he’s willing to be with family.” There was a long pause, and then, in a softer, more strangled voice, you heard who I assumed was her father speak again.
“I’m genuinely sorry about her sleeping with your boyfriend, my Stormi girl. Please, call me. I’m worried about you. I love you, pumpkin cake.”
She gasped, hearing, who I assume was her dad, telling her he didn’t know and he loved her. Tears filled her eyes, “Daddy,” she whispered.
The next seventeen voicemails were pretty much more of the same nonsense. More blaming her, telling her to be understanding, that family needs to come first, calling her selfish. Blaming her for tearing the family apart. That one made me bark out a humorless laugh. The nerve of these nincompoops. Her mother and sister are absolutely horrible to her, and her dad is begging her to call him. There were a fewfrom her ex, admitting to sleeping with her sister, sounding all arrogant to calls where he’s apologizing profusely, begging her to call and talk it out with him.
The text messages were basically the same, but in text form, just more and from extended family, also. Cousins and aunts and even uncles. Even ones from months after the confrontation, with pictures her sister sent, with dates they were taken, and mocking her for being so naïve, and continuing to rub her relationship with her ex in her face. Her sister even sent photos of what looked like their wedding night.
“This is more than enough to destroy them, and any claims they’ve made,” Alex said with a positively evil smirk on his face. I knew this was a lawyer’s wet dream, but he didn’t need to make it so obvious. “I cannot wait for the judge to hear these. We could either wait until they serve us…or…we could take this to the media. If thismovementthey’re pushing gets any bigger, ya know?”
“How much bigger are we talking? Because they’re already leaving horrible reviews on the book for sale on Amazon, the socials I have set up for the Artemis penname, Goodreads. It’s a nightmare. I’d rather not have this get too much bigger if possible.”
Alex nodded, and I was already thinking of putting together an interview with a couple of the smaller news outlets, and maybe a statement from Artemis that we put out there to her fan base on the socials. Trying to get a handle on the chaos.
“I’ve got a plan. But…itmightinvolve putting your face out there, if you’re ready?” I asked, hesitantly, because I knew the pen name was to try to minimize blowback from her family, to keep her life separate from her writing. But that was out thewindow now, since they knew, since they were calling her out for ‘false claims’.
“Let’s do this.”
S E V E N: Standing Up for Myself.
Stormi’s POV
Within the two weeks since Alex and Sebastian came over to talk strategy, when the insanely negative reviews first started, attacking not just my book but myself as an author, we had started our countermeasures against my family. Our first move was apologizing to my fans for all of the drama, and promising that it would all be cleared up soon, posting it directly on my author page on Amazon. Then another on my socials, letting them know that I would be doing an interview, and posting a link for them to watch and share.
That interview wasyesterday, with a local news station, and Sebastian had another one scheduled for tomorrow for me over Zoom with a morning show in New York since my book was listed in the top ten self-help books, and was on its way to becoming a best seller. I couldn’t wait for people to watch these, and hopefully, it would put the stories to rest about all of this being ‘fake’, that I’m ‘looking for clout’.
I spent the day holed up in my office, working on a smutty romance novel, a sweet one that ended happily with lots of orgasms for the main couple after some serious drama. That’s all I wanted. I wanted to get to that point in my own book where it was peaceful, the drama had passed, and we could just live that easy, steady, mundane life. There was definitely no way I could go on that first date any time soon. Not until all of this crap was over. There was no way I’d get any kind of sleep.
